Technologies have been devised or advanced that contribute to expanding the use of commercial and personal vehicles from merely a form of transportation to acting as communication hubs. The vehicle is able to communicate wirelessly with remote systems in order to serve or facilitate a number of objectives including related to safety, navigation, information gathering, entertainment and education. Communications in and with the vehicle typically involve a cellular phone or other communication source/device that is able to send and receive communications from outside the vehicle.
Although significant efforts have been directed to improving vehicle communications, substantial barriers remain to fulfill the vast potential of the telematics field. Vehicle communications can require a number of systems and devices that can include hardware and/or software resident in the vehicle. These can be proprietary to certain entities, such as owners or lessees. There is great reluctance on the part of vehicle makers and others to allowing use of proprietary systems by third parties. In the context of the car manufacturer, it may have numerous proprietary rights in vehicle interfaces, storage memories, vehicle buses, and vehicle devices. There are concerns with the safety and integrity of such systems if third parties were allowed unauthorized or uncontrolled access. There must also be sufficient economic and financial reasons to permit access and use by third parties. Consequently, it is important not only to provide a physical infrastructure that facilitates communications involving the vehicle, but also economic incentives and acceptable returns on investment.
Unleashing the potential of telematics requires cooperation among various entities, including car makers, manufacturers of communication devices including cellular telephones, developers of applications and communication service providers. One or more of these entities has proprietary technologies or interests that must be taken into account and safeguarded. For example, handset manufacturers interface to the handset and vehicle manufacturers interface to vehicle devices. Until there are compelling applications that make use of proprietary vehicle systems and technologies in place to protect proprietary rights, telematics development will be inhibited. Furthermore, vehicles themselves are complex systems where reliability is critical for human safety. Any modifications to the tested and deployed vehicle systems introduces new risk. On the other hand, if proprietary systems can be rendered secure and shared by the various entities, the issue of security is no longer a draw-back and overall costs associated with vehicle communications can be reduced. Additionally, a rich set of applications can be developed once acceptable access to proprietary systems in the vehicle are made available.
It would be advantageous therefore to provide a framework for protecting the proprietary systems and the interests of multiple parties, including the end user, who are involved with numerous and diverse vehicle communications. The interests of the end user can include in at least certain applications protection of the user's privacy. Privacy of the end user might be safeguarded when utilizing resources in the vehicle to conduct financial transactions. In addition to appropriate security and/or privacy protection, it would also be appropriate to establish relationships among the various parties that provide incentive for providing open access to resources associated with vehicles including acceptable remuneration.